Sonnet 73 on My 73rd Birthday

Cynthia Reeves, “Decaying Tree,” 1977

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Sonnet 73
By William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

My life has not fallen into the yellow leaf or the bare tree, the dim hour after sunset, or the dying fire, but at my back I hear time’s Formula One hurrying near.

*****

I first came across the following lines by Ovid in Ernst Robert Curtius’s great European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. I think of them often:

Quid numeras annos? Vixi maturior annis: 
Acta senem faciunt: haec numerandi tibi. 
     Ovid, Consolatio ad Liviam

Why dost thou number years? I have lived to a riper age than years can show.
’Tis deeds make old: these must thou number.
     Loeb translation

Why do you count the years? I’ve lived more ripely than my years. 
Experiences make the man old: those you must number.  

*****

Shakespeare graciously wrote this year’s birthday poem, but I have occasionally written my own.

After Life’s Middle

Trees hang lower,
into the river, dipping
golden and scarlet manes.
Brighter than last year, I think--
maybe the brightest ever.

It’s good that things get better.
The Eno runs red and yellow
as I wade in waist deep,
out of the easy shallows:
was water ever wetter?
     Redheaded Stepchild (Spring 2013); Skating Rough Ground (Kelsay Press, 2022)

As I age, I do have the sense of some things, important things, getting better, especially what might be called wisdom in all its forms--self-acceptance, tolerance of others, reconciliation with God. As Yeats writes, "Delighted to be but wise, / For men improve with the years." But Yeats is not satisfied with the loss of youth--"O would that we had met / When I had my burning youth!" The sense of regret for lost powers and energy varies, but is never far absent. But being less self-absorbed I have been able to enter in a modest way into the struggles and occasional triumphs of others--young refugees, an often homeless man, aspiring young poets. 

*****

Song
First written for my 51st birthday

Another year has passed. 
Let it not be my last. 

Now comes my seventy-third. 
Let it not be my worst. 

Let everything have tongue--
each cone on the pine tree hung--

and every tongue a voice
that all things may rejoice

in their particular song
if I cannot stay long.